1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to transmission of data from operating aircraft to receivers on the ground. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for streaming avionics data that conserves bandwidth while providing desired data.
2. Related Art
Flight data recorders (FDRs) record information to help determine the nature and causes of accidents. However, in certain situations it may be difficult to find and recover a FDR. This and other aspects of aviation incidents have led to a number of recommendations related to remote monitoring of aircraft. These recommendations include more accurate airplane location tracking to simplify recovery of flight data recorders, and also called for aircraft to have the ability to stream black box data over the air. The ability of ground observers to evaluate avionics data while a plane is in flight could help to resolve emergency situations in the future.
While it is desirable to stream avionics data from aircraft during flight, one challenge in doing so is the bandwidth for such transmissions. Transmitting all flight data continuously requires significant bandwidth and imposes significant costs. For example, such flight data can include static reports about the operation of specific aircraft systems. These reports can include relatively large amounts of data, and use significant bandwidth. The present application seeks to address one or more of the above issues.